Satch & Me

by Dan Gutman

  “You know how to use the Internet, Flip?” I asked, a little surprised.

  “What, ya think I drive a horse and buggy?” Flip said. “Howdya think I run this joint?”

  Flip began to search for “fastest pitcher” and stuff like that. For an old guy, he knew his way around a mouse and keyboard pretty well.

  “Listen to this quote,” he said, reading off the screen. ‘I know who’s the best pitcher I ever seen and it’s old Satchel Paige. My fastball looks like a change of pace alongside that little pistol bullet old Satchel shoots up to the plate.’”

  “Who said that?” I asked.

  “Dizzy Dean.”

  “Dean said Paige was faster than he was?” I asked.

  “Yup.”

  “But if black players weren’t allowed in the majors, how did Dizzy Dean know how fast Satchel Paige was?” I asked.

  “In the off-season, they used to play exhibition games against each other,” Flip told me. “In fact, Paige beat Dean in 1934. That’s when Dizzy was at his peak. And Paige beat Feller too, in 1946.”

  “Twelve years later?” I asked.

  “Paige pitched for somethin’ like forty years,” Flip said. “He was unbelievable. Hey, Stosh, check this out. Lefty Grove and Bob Feller both said Paige was the best pitcher they ever saw.”

  “Wow!” I had no idea Satchel Paige was so good. Flip kept finding more quotes about him.

  “Ted Williams said Paige was the greatest pitcher in baseball,” Flip said. “And Joe DiMaggio called him the fastest pitcher he ever faced.”

  “DiMaggio and Williams said Paige was the best pitcher ever?” I asked. “They were two of the best hitters ever!”

  “Look, here’s a quote from my man Dolf Camilli,” Flip said. “He played first base for Brooklyn when I was growin’ up. Camilli said, ‘Satchel Paige threw me the fastest ball I’ve ever seen in my life.’”

  Flip logged off, put his computer to sleep, and turned to me.

  “Stosh, I think we found our guy.”

  Leroy “Satchel” Paige

  5

  The Auction

  THE FIRST THING I DID WHEN I GOT HOME FROM FLIP’S Fan Club was to look up Satchel Paige in The Baseball Encyclopedia. It said he had a lifetime major league record of 28 wins and 31 losses, plus 32 saves. Not very impressive. Of course, Paige pitched for more than twenty years in the Negro Leagues before they ever let him in the majors.

  Flip called that night while I was doing my homework. I figured he was calling to let me know he was changing the time of practice, or something like that. But no.

  “I have bad news,” he said. “We can’t go back in time to clock Satchel Paige’s fastball.”

  “What?!” I said. “Why not?”

  “I completely forgot,” Flip said. “There are no baseball cards of Negro League players. They never made any. I swear, I forget everything these days. Don’t grow old, Stosh. Memory is the first thing to go.”

  Flip told me that the only Negro League baseball cards are those “retro” cards that were printed in recent years, long after the league was gone. They wouldn’t do me any good.

  “Are you sure?” I asked.

  “I called every card dealer I know,” Flip said. “The only real Paige cards are from the 1950s, when he was pitching for St. Louis. But he was over the hill by then. It wouldn’t be fair to clock his fastball when he was an old guy.”

  I was crushed, and Flip knew it. He kept apologizing for forgetting and he kept trying to come up with other solutions.

  “What about Bob Feller?” Flip suggested. “I got a Feller card back at the store from 1946. That was the year he won 26 games and struck out 348 batters. Pitched ten shutouts that season too. Boy, he was fast.”

  “What would be the point?” I asked. “Even if we went back in time with the radar gun and clocked Feller, we’ll never know how fast Paige was. Feller himself said that Paige was faster.”

  Flip apologized one more time, and then we hung up. That was that. I’d never find out who threw the fastest pitch in baseball history.

  I pushed Satchel Paige out of my mind and went back to doing my homework. There was a big math test I had to study for, and I also had to look up some stuff on the Internet for social studies.

  Well, I tried to push Satchel Paige out of my mind, anyway. Maybe Flip was wrong. Maybe there was a Paige card out there somewhere. Just for the heck of it, I typed in “www.ebay.com.”

  I don’t know if you know about eBay or not. It’s this online auction site where people who want to buy stuff and people who have stuff to sell can connect with each other. You can find all kinds of weird stuff on eBay. If anybody in the world had a Satchel Paige card to sell, I would find it there.

  Here’s how it works. Somebody who has something to sell lists the item, with a description of the thing and usually a photo. Buyers who want that item can place bids through their computers. There’s a deadline for when the auction ends. When the deadline passes, whoever has the highest bid wins. You send the money to the seller and they send you the stuff that you bid on. It’s pretty simple.

  You have to be eighteen years old to buy or sell on eBay. But my dad said I could use his account. He buys stuff all the time. I bought a few baseball cards and some old magazines. I never sold anything.

  The main eBay screen asks, “What are you looking for?” So I typed in “Satchel Paige.”

  A few seconds later, ten screens’ worth of Satchel Paige items jumped to my computer screen. People were selling Satchel Paige autographs, jerseys, plaques, pencil clips, books, and collector plates with Satchel Paige’s face on them. There were even Satchel Paige bobble-head dolls.

  I had to narrow my search. I typed in “Satchel Paige card.” If there were no Negro League baseball cards, the search would turn up nothing. That was what I expected.

  But that’s not what happened. There was one listing. It said: SATCHEL PAIGE PHOTO POSTCARD.

  A postcard! I scrolled down to the description of the item. It said the postcard was from 1942 and it was in excellent condition.

  Maybe I could use a postcard, I thought. After all, I had used a photograph to go back to 1863 and meet Abner Doubleday. A postcard with a photo on it might do the trick too.

  The photo on the card was black and white. Satchel Paige was leaning way back and kicking his leg up high, ready to throw the ball.

  Instinctively, I reached out and touched the image of Paige on the screen, as if that alone would send me back to 1942.

  Nothing happened. No tingles or anything.

  I looked at the information about the auction. There had been just two bids on the postcard in the last seven days. The starting bid was two dollars and the current bid was four dollars. It was cheap! The auction deadline was five hours away.

  I checked out the seller, who was located in Spring Valley, California. You’ve got to be careful what you bid on, because some sellers will send you damaged stuff, or stuff that is nothing like the way they described it. Sometimes they’ll just take your money and send you nothing.

  But this seller had been selling stuff on eBay for a long time. He (or she) had a 99.5 percent positive feedback rating. I looked at the feedback reviews and they all said things like, “Great deal on neat item”…“Well wrapped, in good condition as promised”…“Fast shipment, highly recommend.”

  Maybe a photo postcard would work.

  I decided to bid on the postcard. Even if it wouldn’t send me back in time, I’d only have spent a few bucks. Plus, I’d have something cool to add to my card collection.

  Now, I’m no dummy. I know how eBay works. If you make a bid, somebody will very often outbid you. So the trick is to wait until the auction is about to end, and then place your bid.

  The auction was scheduled to end in five hours. I looked at the clock by my bed. It was 10:30 P.M. Five hours later would be 3:30 A.M. I set my alarm to wake me up at 3:15 A.M. I logged off eBay, brushed my teeth, said good night to my mom, and went to bed.


  When the alarm started to beep in the middle of the night, I was groggy, but I remembered what I had to do. I went to the computer and quickly logged on to eBay. The Satchel Paige postcard was still at four dollars. Good. Nobody else had made a bid. There were fourteen minutes left in the auction. I typed in a bid for five dollars and sat back to wait for the YOU HAVE WON THIS AUCTION message.

  A minute later, this message appeared on my screen:

  YOU HAVE BEEN OUTBID BY ANOTHER BIDDER. (IF YOU’D LIKE, BID AGAIN.)

  What?!

  It said the current bid was now seven dollars. Somebody else out there was bidding on the same item! There were twelve minutes left in the auction. I typed in a bid for ten dollars. That’ll show ’em I’m serious, I thought to myself.

  YOU HAVE BEEN OUTBID BY ANOTHER BIDDER….

  Oh, man! This creep was playing hardball! The current bid was up to twelve dollars. I checked my wallet. I had a twenty-dollar bill in there and some change. There were ten minutes left in the auction. I typed in a bid for fourteen dollars. No way the postcard was worth that much to anybody else. But I wanted it badly. A few more minutes ticked by.

  YOU HAVE BEEN OUTBID….

  This was really pissing me off! It was just a stupid postcard. No one else needed it as badly as I did. The current bid was up to sixteen dollars. There were only six minutes left in the auction.

  No way was I going to let this jerk get the postcard. I decided to treat it like a basketball game. I’d let the clock run down and go for a final shot just before the buzzer. If I made the highest bid just before time ran out, I’d be the winner.

  There were five minutes left in the auction. I just sat there and stared at the screen.

  Four.

  Three.

  Two.

  With one minute left, I typed in my final bid. Twenty bucks. My allowance wasn’t due for another two weeks. This was all the money I had. I waited as long as I could and then I hit the Enter key.

  YOU HAVE BEEN OUTBID….

  In the words of the immortal Babe Ruth, “!@#$%&!!!”

  What? How could I lose?! I was really bummed.

  I turned off the computer and tried to go back to sleep. It wasn’t easy. I kept thinking about the stupid auction. The only good thing that came out of it was that I still had my twenty bucks.

  A few days later, there was a knock at the door. Flip Valentini was standing on the front porch.

  “Hey, Stosh,” he said, “guess what I just got?”

  He pulled the Satchel Paige postcard out of his jacket pocket. It was in a plastic sleeve.

  “Where’d you get that?” I asked.

  “I bought it on eBay,” he said gleefully. “Twenty-three bucks. Some bum kept tryin’ to outbid me, but I beat ’im at the last second.”

  “That bum was me!” I yelled. “I was bidding for it!”

  “You?” Flip said, laughing. “I coulda got it fer four stinkin’ bucks if you hadn’t been biddin’ against me, you bum!”

  “I didn’t know it was you!” I said.

  We were both laughing so hard it hurt.

  Flip pulled the postcard out of its plastic sleeve and handed it to me. Just touching it made my fingertips tingle.

  6

  That Tingling Sensation

  I WAS IN THE KITCHEN HAVING A SNACK THE NEXT DAY when the doorbell rang. Mom was upstairs, so I went to get it. I heard some strange guy outside, mumbling to himself in a weird voice.

  “You dirty rat,” he said, “you killed my brother.”

  Maybe I should call the police, I thought. This guy sounded like a nut. I peeked through the peephole in the front door to get a look at him.

  It was Flip.

  He was wearing a gray suit and a hat with a brim, so he looked like a gangster. He had one of those old-time hard-shell suitcases in one hand. His other hand kept jabbing the air while he repeated, “You dirty rat…you dirty rat…”

  I opened the door.

  Flip pointed a finger and poked me in the chest.

  “You dirty rat, you killed my brother. It’s gonna be curtains for you, mister. Curtains!”

  Except that he said “doity” for “dirty,” and “brudder” for “brother,” and “coytins” for “curtains.”

  “Flip, are you losing your mind?” I asked.

  “Whatsa matter?” he said. “You don’t like my Jimmy Cagney impersonation?”

  “Jimmy who?”

  “Cagney!” Flip said. “He was a great actor. Ain’tcha never seen White Heat or Angels with Dirty Faces? Ah, never mind. How do I look, Stosh? Do I look like a heavy?”

  “A heavy what?” I asked.

  “A heavy. That’s what they used to call bad guys in the movies,” Flip said. “Don’t mess with me, sonny. I may be packing heat.”

  I had no idea what “heat” meant either, but I figured it must be something bad guys used to pack when they went on vacation.

  “Nice suit, Flip,” I said. “Did you go to one of those antique clothing stores?”

  “Heck no,” he replied, stepping through the doorway. “I went to my closet. I knew this suit would come back in style someday. Just goes to show you should never throw anything away. Still fits perfect, huh?”

  Actually, the suit kind of hung off him. Flip must have been a lot more muscular when he was younger. I didn’t want to hurt his feelings, though.

  “You look great, Flip,” I said. “Do you have the radar gun?”

  “Right here.”

  Flip tapped his suitcase and put it down on the living-room table. It didn’t open with a zipper. Instead, Flip clicked open two metal latches, one on each side.

  “I brought some duds for you too.”

  He took out some old clothes that looked like a smaller version of what he was wearing. For all I knew, he had saved it since he was my age.

  “Oh, man, I can’t wear this stuff,” I complained.

  “Why not?” Flip said. “When you play ball, you wear a baseball uniform. When you go to church, you wear another uniform. And when you go to 1942, you gotta wear a different uniform. Come on. Put it on, or I’ll murder ya.”

  Flip said “murder” like “moyda.”

  I went to the bathroom and put on the weird clothes. Looking at myself in the mirror, I actually thought I looked pretty cool. Flip said I looked like a young John Dillinger, whoever he was.

  “Your mom knows we’re doin’ this, right, Stosh?” Flip asked.

  “Of course.”

  “And she’s okay with it?”

  When I first discovered I had the power to travel through time with baseball cards, my mother wasn’t exactly what you’d call supportive. She thought it was dangerous. She thought I might get hurt, or worse. She was right. I almost got killed a few times. But after I took her back to 1863 with me to meet Abner Doubleday, she was hooked. I didn’t have to talk her into letting me go anymore.

  “Believe me, Flip, she said it’s okay. My mom is totally into this.”

  At that, my mother came downstairs. Flip did one of those wolf whistles guys do when they see a pretty girl. I did a double take. Mom was wearing one of those weird old dresses with shoulder pads, and her hair was all pinned up on top of her head. Her lips and fingernails were bright red. And she was singing….

  “‘Don’t sit under the apple tree with anyone else but me,” she sang, “anyone else but me, anyone else but me….’”

  Ugh. I can’t believe old people think hip-hop is bad. The music they used to listen to is horrible.

  My mom hardly ever sings. But there she was, singing that goofball song and dancing around the living room.

  “Come on, Mr. Valentini!” she said, grabbing Flip’s hand. “I took a swing dance class at the Y. Let’s you and me cut a rug, daddy-o!”

  Mom and Flip started dancing around the living room. They were doing the jitterbug or the Charles-ton, or one of those wacky dances people did a zillion years ago. It was totally embarrassing. If anybody from school had been there
to see it, I would have had to pretend I didn’t know them.

  Fortunately, Flip got winded pretty quickly and had to sit down on the couch. My mom kept right on dancing without him.

  “So what do you say?” she asked, swirling her dress around. “Can I come to 1942 too? You might need me to sweet talk some of those old baseball players. Or maybe I could drive your getaway car.”

  “Not this time, Mom,” I said. “Flip and I have important baseball research to conduct.”

  “Oh, pooh on that,” Mom said with a pout. “I was hoping I could meet some handsome dreamboat out-fielder and we’d run off and live happily ever after. Isn’t that the way it always happened back in the 1940s, Mr. Valentini?”

  “Uh, not in my case, no,” Flip said.

  “Well, I packed you some lunch anyway,” she said, skipping into the kitchen to get two paper bags from the refrigerator. “And here are some Band-Aids, just in case anything happens.”

  She is so overprotective. Flip put the bags in the suitcase.

  “Do you have your baseball cards?” she asked.

  That’s right! I almost forgot. Besides the Satchel Paige postcard, I needed to bring a new baseball card with me too. Just like the 1942 card would take us to 1942, the new card would bring Flip and me back to the present day.

  I ran upstairs and grabbed a pack of new cards from my desk drawer. I stuck it in my pants pocket and ran back downstairs to sit on the couch next to Flip. He had the suitcase on his lap now, and the Satchel Paige card was on top of it.

  It was time.

  “Let’s do it,” I said.

  I took Flip’s hand in mine. It was sweaty.

  “You nervous?” I asked.

  “A little.”

  “It’s gonna be great, Flip. Trust me. I’m getting good at this.”

  “I hope we don’t have to do any runnin’,” Flip said. “I don’t get around too good anymore. The legs are shot.”

  “You won’t have to run. I promise.”

  Flip handed me the Satchel Paige card. I closed my eyes and concentrated. “You boys be careful, now,” Mom said. “I don’t want anything to happen.”